February 1, 2010
Washington, DC

Yucateca weaving in Merida, Mexico, by Lucy Nieto from Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucynieto/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Carlos Fuentes is one of the Mexican writers featured in the Big Read anthology Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories. The son of a diplomat, Fuentes himself served a two-year term as the Mexican Ambassador to France, in addition to pursuing a career as a writer, editor, educator, and scholar. In this interview excerpt, Fuentes speaks on the value of reading.

We are assailed by a thousand sounds and images that distract us from ourselves, from our own thoughts.  Reading is a way to come back into ourselves, into our soul, remember who we are, reflect on our lives, reflect on the world, reflect on other people.  I think it essential for a culture, for a civilization to have readers.